What Is CONCACAF?

Michael Bradley and the United States are ready for the Gold Cup. (Getty)

Soccer fans are sure to hear the term CONCACAF many times over the next few weeks as the Gold Cup tournament takes place here in the United States. According to the CONCACAF website, the term stands for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football. The federation was started in 1961 and currently has 40 members. A complete list of members can be found on the CONCACAF website.

CONCACAF organizes the World Cup qualifying tournaments that the United States play in. The federation is primarily made up of countries in North and Central America. Some of the most notable countries include Canada, the United States and Mexico. World Cup qualifying is typically done by region, which explains why the federation is mostly full of countries within close proximity of each other.

According to Football Bible, the federation is headquartered in New York City. CONCACAF structure consists of Congress, an Executive Committee, the General Secretariat and an additional number of smaller committees.

There have been 10 countries from CONCACAF that have particiapted in at least one World Cup. Although no country from the federation has won the tournament.

For the 2015 summer, the term CONCACAF is synonamous with the Gold Cup tournament. The 2015 Gold Cup will be the 13th edition of the event. This year, the tournament includes the following list of CONCACAF Members: United States, Panama, Honduras, Haiti, Costa Rica, Jamaica, El Salvador, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Trinidad & Tobago and Cuba.

The United States is in group A for the Gold Cup along with Panama, Haiti and Honduras. The US first three matches are July 7th against Honduras, July 10th against Haiti and July 13th against Panama.

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